April 10, 2014

Are the Irish the creative bit in the English?

I am writing this from a small cafe just opposite the Old Bailey. For many Irishmen of my vintage, the Old Bailey is synonymous with IRA terrorists as well as innocent Irish people stitched up for crimes they didn’t commit. In my head, the Old Bailey reminds me of the 1970s and 1980s, a time when relations between Ireland and England were at their most strained.

Today here in London our President is meeting Queen Elizabeth II. Times have changed.

But what doesn’t change is the people. Irish and English and Scottish people have always been intertwined. We are victims of geography as much as history, and our destinies are interdependent.

We Irish are by far the largest ethnic minority in England. A recent study suggests that one in four English people claim to have some Irish background. If this is true, that is some 14 million people. This means that today there are close to three times as many more English people of Irish descent than there are Irish people of Irish descent.

This identity with Ireland is particularly marked among younger people in England. Some 42pc of young English people claim to be part Irish. Irishness is quite hip in England. Young Londoners, never slow to spot the trend, are committed.

Quite apart from the surveys, the Irish footprint in England shows up dramatically in official figures. In the census of 2001, there were six million people of Irish background in England. Over one in 10 of the English population had either an Irish parent or grandparent. That’s quite a statistic

Close to three-quarters of the Irish who emigrated in the past 70 years now live in England. By 1971, over 900,000 Irish people lived in England, while the population of Ireland itself was only just over two million.

The vast majority of Irish people in England came over in the 1950s when over 500,000 emigrated to England, mainly moving to Manchester, the Midlands and London. This was the period of the disappearing Ireland, when three out of every four children born in the 1930s and 1940s emigrated.

Their children and grandchildren make up the lion’s share of today’s Irish population in England.

I refer to the Hiberno-British as Hi-Brits.

There was a later but much smaller bulge in the 1980s ensuring that Hi-Brits are continuing to be born in maternity wards all over England. There has been another wave in the past five years.

The impact of the Hi-Brit on English culture has been enormous.

For example, those whom the ‘NME’ said were the most influential people in British rock culture in the past 50 years were all either the sons or grandsons of Irish immigrants.

Stephen Morrissey and Johnny Marr were both sons of Irish immigrants in Manchester. The Smiths, the band that defined Englishness in the 1980s and created the English indie scene, didn’t actually have any English blood in them at all.

Fast-forward to the 1990s and Noel and Liam Gallagher were the crown princes of Britpop – a term coined by the music press to describe an apparently uniquely English youth phenomenon in the 1990s. Yet again, the Gallaghers, like the Smiths, have no English blood. They’re also sons of Irish immigrants to Manchester.

Johnny Lydon aka Johnny Rotten was the son of an Irish immigrant to London. He epitomised the snarling, out-of-control side of English punk adolescence. He was also a hybrid: genetically Irish, environmentally English.

Today’s pop theorists say the English excel at music, and youth rebellions and pop culture. There is little doubt that this is where England has been at her most creative over the past 40 years. The same theorists appear on arty late-night chat shows, citing pivotal names to back up their impressive-sounding arguments.

In the course of this serious sociological discussion, they are highly likely to trace what they might describe as an “uninterrupted rebellious arc”, fromJohn Lennon to Johnny Rotten, Morrissey, Liam Gallagher, even up to today and Pete Doherty and even Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys, whose Irish granny is active in the Sheffield Irish centre.

When we think of comedy, another area where the English excel, the fingerprints of the Hiberno-Brits are everywhere. Could anyone, except the Hi-Brit son of Irish immigrants, comedian Steve Coogan, have had the perspicacity to create the horrible, toe-curling and monstrously middle-English Alan Partridge?

The Irish impact is not only in edgy comedy or rebels with guitars. Smack in the centre of mainstream broadcasting, we have Judy Finnigan, Dec Donnelly and Ant McPartlin (Ant and Dec), Ann Robinson, Sharon Osbourne, Dermot O’Leary, Dermot Murnaghan and Martha Kearney.

The Hi-Brit is a unique fusion that could neither be fully Irish nor fully English, yet they flourished in England, not in Ireland. England’s tolerance played a huge part in allowing them to express themselves. Can you imagine Boy George (George O’Dowd) or Julian Clary or Paul O’Grady getting away with cross-dressing in Ireland in the 1980s?

The Hi-Brits are part of the furniture. Many argue that they are now as English as the English themselves. Well, yes and no – but is there a difference?

The 1970s and 1980s Hi-Brits knew the “otherness” as kids when they closed their front doors and entered a very un-English, Irish world of sacred hearts, domestic service, labourers, nurses, spinster Auntie Mary and hairy bacon. They knew it when they made their communion, went to Mass and attended schools called St Dominic’s.

This distinction was never black and white and the lines between both tribes – the immigrants and the hosts – were often blurred. Yet there was a difference and for many, keen to get away from the relatively foreignness of Irishness in post-war England, it was the kitchen. And it appears that this difference could have been the catalyst for a creative surge.

As I look out on the Old Bailey and consider these two tribes, us and them, how close yet distinct we are, I realise that seeking to elevate those things which separate us is best described as “the narcissism of small differences”.

This entire post is a general question to the guys on this great site who can tease this out for me, or explain what I am missing/mistaken by. General question to all of you if you have time to help.

The article states that a typical 3-Bed Semi cannot be built for less than €197,000.00 EXCLUDING land cost and taxes. The article states this, not me personally (personally I have a serious problem with this statistic).

I think the average industrial wage is €35,500.00. And let’s say a couple are both earning this amount and thus can get a joint mortgage of four times their joint salary, giving them a mortgage of €284,000.00 – so along with their own deposit they can buy a house for €315,000.00 roughly.

Over a 25 year mortgage term that would be €1,500 per month. All seems fine and dandy.

This lovely couple have no debt, pay no pension contributions, and currently own no property and thus come out with a joint monthly net salary of €4,650.00 per month. Lovely.

The builder, let’s say buys the land for €30k a unit and tax is €60k per unit, and he intends making a profit of €50k per unit. So he is selling these 3-Bed Semi’s for €337,000.00 a unit.

He finds ways to cut some corners (quality) and knocks off some of his own profit to sell them at €315,000.00.

So basically, unlike any other country in the world, the cost of building a home in Ireland is so expensive that only the very best “normal” people can or will ever be able to afford to buy one, because of the massive wage/material costs of €197k?

Now let’s say this couple decide beyond all belief to have a baby? Sweet love of god are they mad? One of them takes maternity leave. Or heaven forbid considers becoming a full time parent.

Or one loses their job.

Or one becomes seriously sick or injured. Or interest rates rise, but surely such an event would never happen…

This perfect couple are left with no wriggle room. Basically the current structure is set up so that normal average people cannot afford one mistake, or one problem, before they are a serious problem case. Simply because the cost of building a three-bed semi is €197,000 just for materials and labour.

What? Tell me this is something I am mistaken about? Possibly something has to change?

Not the average industrial wage, not maternity leave, but the cost of building materials and the cost of labour for building cannot be that expensive per unit. There has to be an economy of scale when building twenty identical homes?

Something punches me in the gut on this one. Either the builders are telling porkies about the underlying costs, or this country is moving in a direction that will lead to serious civil unrest as the current elite become massive landlords.

Tell me I am wrong (but please explain, so I don’t make a fool of myself over a pint this weekend).

The house was built by a local building firm of 2 skilled brothers, so no element of a ‘direct build’ and my friends had no connections in the building trade, a PAYE couple themselves, so no VAT discounts…

I don’t imagine your “lovely couple” got that for their money?

There’s something definitely “rotten in the state of Denmark {Eire}” and to acquiesce that “heaven will direct it” is foolhardy, but we have that in spades in Ireland, brainwashed in accepting the status quo,that is – not questioning what appears,to most sensible people anyway,to be waaaaaay wrong , waaaaay off and unreasonable !

there needs to be drastic change in housing ! the sense of entitlement by land owners and landlords is staggering and “porkey pies” flying goood-oh ( thats being very polite btw ) from all quarters!

“30k euro per unit”,u say GF? .. hmmm ….Assuming,and lest we forget,”assumption IS the mother of all f*ck ups”, that this 30k figure is ‘fair’ to pluck outta thin air(and not brand 35k as ol’ talk,or brainwashed conditioning)then lets ask if this 30k/unit is a fair figure for

for the vendor/land owner ?
for the developer cum builder ?
for the buyer ?

and im choosing not to discuss in any depth the several variety of ravenous,scavenger sharks roaming these particular waters – namely

“Our Goverment sponsored mafia’s” blatant profiteering of this sector

The monopolies of building suppliers & their ridiculously high prices & grossly unrealistic margins!

the banks charges for giving the buyer a mortgage ,for which they receive a supremely healthy return ( and unhealthy for customer! ) i.e. borrow 300k over 30 years @5%avrge, you’ll pay back approx ~600k …That’s DOUBLE !! money for jam for banks,again!

Auctioneers ‘cut’ for doing very very little

Exorbitant Engineers feeeees

If we consider these 3 scenarios

A )

a development of 16 units (2 storey) built to the acre, yes one single statute acre, will yield an eye watering gross return, of 480k euro for the person selling the land ( ok, i’m not allowing for a green area , playground site, roads ,etc.) ( so that’s 30k x 16 = 480k total !! )

B)

At the other end of the planning spectrum, lets say there’s only a density of only 8 x 3 bed semis permitted to the acre, then that’d b 240k to the land owner, right?.[And yes I do appreciate that a person may only build (or secure planning) one or two houses per acre of land]

C)

So for the sake of this arbitrary example, lets choose a middle ground of 12 units to the acre, then that’s 360k return for the land owner.

Now the average asking price for agricultural land in Ireland is how much ?? Answer : c.12k per statute acre ( and 12k is on a good day, certainly not a bad day, which could be as low as 8k ) so the question i ask , is

why oh why,does the land owner in scenario B, the ‘worst’ case scenario remember, of these 3 scenarios anyway, yield a return of a whopping 20 times the yield on the sale of an agricultural acre of land on a good day, and that’s not spin , that reality!!! WHY?

And in scenario A, the best case scenario (for ze vendor anyway) how on earth is it fair/equitable that the land owner yields 40 times that of an agricultural acre of land??

riddle me that one batman !!;)

And the developer in question,becomes an instant millionaire ( 50k x 20 units ) from this single venture?! The “normal people” with skilled jobs too and a gross annual income of 35k PAYE , will ,with great effort ,save max 10k cash per year, so it’d take your average Joe/or Jane Bloggs , 100 working years to accumulate a 1 million fortune…

the line between fair and grossly unfair is certainly “blurred”! Yes,the availability of finance fuels speculation and while rent controls may prove useful,if the land owners are conditioned to have an expectation of mega bucks per acre,then little may change??!

Michael Coughlan is the resident construction guru here ,so lets see if he’ll throw some light on proceedings?

I find this slightly bemusing. The Irish are getting all worked up into a tiz now that the English are being nice to us, look at the Queen isn’t she lovely. Yet they, the English as a people, couldn’t care less. Checking the front page for the Guardian, The Times and even the Daily Mail have no mention of President Higgins visit. The only thing getting any traction about Ireland is a priest singing Hallelujah on YouTube.

I have a lot of English friends and get on great with them. However there was one disconnect I found repeatedly and a quote I heard once, that actually goes as far back as GK Chesterton summed it all up nicely:

“the tragedy of the English conquest of Ireland in the 17th century is that the Irish can never forget it and the English can never remember it”

I can’t imagine a quote being more appropriate of the way the two nations operate. While the Irish are brought up on a diet of famine, the rising, independence, civil war, troubles, bloody english!!! etc. The English don’t know any thing about it, not that they don’t care to know, just just aren’t informed of what they did in Ireland, or as it would turn out Australia, India, Africa, too many bad memories I imagine.

I think it’s great that Ireland is facing into the future and it is true our diaspora is having an influence there, as well as other places all over the world, but we don’t need to get validation of our big brother next door for everything.

We don’t need the permission of an unelected ‘queen’ and a useless ‘president’ stuffing their fat faces at an obscene banquet to get along with each other.

These parasites are the ultimate welfare scammers. Their whole facade is built on the corpses of tens of millions of dead African slaves, and Irish and Indian peasants, not to mention many other nationalities across thousands of years.

String the lot of them up.

The RTE coverage has been cringeworthy. Tommy Gorman was quivering with excitement when the told us that the queen turns off her own light switches. Pathetic.

Adam at least Michael D was elected by democratic vote. When I say this most people rant about me being anti royal or worse. I’m not but I am pro democracy. Why shouldn’t there be an election every five years to see who will become the royal family. Seems fair to me and probably Lizzie would win but at least it would be democratic. There could be regional qualifiers for families interested in going forward. The idea that one family should have such unelected privelage seems totally wrong to me. Not anti royal just extremely pro democratic.

It’s bad enough having the incompetent Edna Kenny in situ without adding the impotent Higgins – to do what exactly?

Anyway, democracy as constituted at present, is barely that.

Tonight, Higgins and Windsor, the two biggest welfare scammers in the British Isles, are putting their heads together again to see how much more they can squeeze out of the ignorant and adoring proles.

To quote Nigel Farage (at my own peril) – “consign them to the dustbin of history”.

“Ignorant and adoring proles.” Sums it up pretty well. The media is bent over double fawning over these two old codgers. I still think that this house of windsor royalty lark is a load of cobblers. Unelected parasites who have a lot more real power than they pretend. It’s not just corgis and parades.

I have to agree on almost all of the above, leeches the whole bloody lot.
And it makes one want to puke watching the boot licking brigade report this non newsworthy crap.
That said, until they leave the 6 counties that they rub in the face of the ROI, 24/7 365, there will never be anything but a fragile peace undermined by a lingering distrust.
Ive had a couple of English girlfriends, one from Cornwall and the other from Bath, and we got on like a house on fire. This was in America before I came to Ireland, my point is, yes we are all the same but you cant conquer an island and give only some of it back. It will always remain an unhealed wound.
The ignorant folks who pay any attention to this bloated old cow turning off her light switches are no more than jack asses and deserve all of the garbage reported on this non historic non story event. Pure shite.
I have no time for any family or people who have never worked a day in their lives. What, am I supposed to believe she wipes her own arse too? I doubt it.
Next thing we will be told she rushes out with her wheelie bin so as to not miss the rubbish collection on Tues. mornings. Sickening.
When I think of this so called Queen I always see the famous Monty Python animation of Terry Gilliam when the Queen has a very loud toilet episode, Hilarious! And appropriate. She stinks. And Higgins??? Gawd awful, but at lest its not the guy who looks like a human Mr Tayto. They were separated at birth.

I wasn’t aware of the visit, but I’m sure it’s of historical significance to a handful of people.
Anyway, back in the real world, a friend awhile back reeled off a long long very long list of “you never guess whose parents are Irish” in the same vein as David’s Hi-Brits. I was truly gobsmacked, and impressed.

Now to counterbalance that impressive list I could reel off my own unimpressive list of “you never guess which historical disgusting human beings’ parents were Irish’ in the annals of the slave trade and Native American history. Unfortunately they keep popping up, “not another one!”

As a Hi-Brit myself whose family moved from England to Ireland in the 70,s back to England in the 80s to work and finally back to Ireland in the 90s I then went and spoiled it all my marrying a Derry woman which is where I am now! Over that period I would often be asked if I was Irish or English.It seemed very important to every one that I pick one and I always felt uncomfortable with it. For me, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” and I feel that is a hugely important point here – we can be something other than just “irish” or “English” – I don’t know what to call it – perhaps, just “grown-up”.

As far the visit of Michael D, hasn’t anyone figured out that this and other events such as the “Irish Day” at Buckingham Place are being very carefully coreographed? Something’s going on behind the scences – perhaps in time for 2016 – like re-joining the Commonwealth as part of a United Ireland solution.!

Great comment. Agree with it all. Rejoining the Commonwealth? LOL! Only in the most far-fetched ‘disaster scenario planning’ if the Euro goes up in smoke and Ireland chooses the £ rather than the $ until a new Punt’s viable?

If you have Irish parents and are raised ‘in the belly of the beast’ on the island of Britain, it leads to a hybrid identity that can only be kept balanced by being ‘creative’. There’s no room for the lazy certainties of Irish-American plastic paddy bunkum and Ireland is close enough to have to face up to the numerous puzzles. In the 70s I remember listening to fok singing ‘rebel’ songs whilst being unable to buy/use contraceptives as their ‘rebel’ leaders were in thrall to a foreign Pope rather than a resident Royal. Etc.

Never thought i’d live to hear “Amhrán na bhFiann” ring out over Windsor Castle as an old elite makes a deal with a young elite to bury the past. No ‘famine’ memorial unveiled by Higgins in London, no more investigations of past terrorism on both sides. Let’s do a deal: Canary Wharf + Canary Dwarf. The IFSC as a £ hedge in case the Euro works out, with a guarantee of an Irish return to Sterling on great terms if Europe goes tits up. It’s the economy, stupid. Geo-political chess moves hidden under pomp and ceremony. Very clever. Bread and Circus. Etc.

There is no such thing as a singular ‘Irish’ or ‘English’ identity. It might suit Royals and Presidents to claim that all issues of class,accent, family background, education, gender, sexuality and economic wealth can be subsumed beneath the butcher’s apron or the green jersey, but only the credulous still wallow in those comforting totalising narratives, pretending they’ve never heard of Intersectionality. Beneath the BBC/Sky P.R, it’s disturbing to observe Norman Tebbit musing about Martin McGuiness being executed by the ‘real’ IRA…

“..What happened in 2007 and 2008 is that the ESF acting through the N.Y. Fed trading desk – had Fed traders call J.P. Morgan’s trading desk and ask them where they “pay” for hundreds-upon-hundreds of billions [totalling Trillions] worth of “…..blah blah, wellll,a variety of turd like ‘investments’, e.g. FRA’s – that are swaps,derivatives hana hana

So,to sum up,the 6TBTF bankrupt banks of Wall St, had then a USD Trilllions of worthless mortgage backed securities, T Bonds and other toxic ,mar dhea ‘assets’,( and a trillion then, was more than the total market capitalisation of the Entire banking industry of USA!)

Nobody would want to buy Trillions of veritable junk,so facing a Meltdown, the 6 TBTF overlords ,who of course didn’t want to ‘show their hand’ of being truly insolvent,arranged in the shadows, for the Exchange Stabilisation Fund ,via the FED (via JPM -on a direct hotline) to buy ALL this contagion stock – lock stock the lot too, and this is Yellen’s role in the current financial war – invisible hand,sleight of hand and misdirection!

So job well done Benanke and now Yellen, as she too has alleviated the TBTF balance sheets of trillions of dogsh*t, and she says she’ll now taper her foot off the gas,now that banks have offloaded dead stock, and she now reassures us all, with her forked tongue,that the Fed’s speedo reads 55, but the Doppler gun ,by us the doubting Thomases ,has her clocked at topping 100 mph,or is that billion$/month!

and if Anyone thinks, or has a gut feeeling, that a new sound money or metal and closing central banks will now deal sufficiently with this ‘tangled’ web of imperialism and their mutually beneficial global “circle jerk”, between central banks and sovereigns too, well please please please,

Michael,clearly its not just interest rates that are horse whipped? you’re in need of desperate “shake,rattle and roll”

The Anglo-American axis of tyrannical ,criminal fraudulent ,oligarchs and the resulting CUTS and odious DEBT foisted on us, is suffocating us all!The elephant in the room is corrupt monetary policies and programmes of shadow QE ! c’mon man!

I dont know how the mechanics of the circle jerk can go unnoticed [and largely unreported]?

But i do know that when a magician makes an elephant disappear on stage ,i know its a trick of misdirection ,but you probably still think it’s “magic”,like Keynesian magic,what?

“get up off your ass”, watch a bit of Rob Kirby on youtube and learn a little and then think about it,for more than 5 minutes

When we,humanity,masters FIRE, for the common good that is,then we can wilfully make the leaps needed to “be fruitful and multiply,and fill the earth, and SUBDUE it” (Genesis 1:28)

I’m trying to share what i have learned in the last 2 years,but you are just not interested are you?im going on holidays Tues anyway Michael,so you wont have to suffer me for a few weeks.Horraaayyy!

Adam Lebor’s “The Tower of Basel” was just a wonderful read (thanks Bonbon and Tony Brogan) and “ALL THE PRESIDENTS’ BANKERS: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power” ought to be equally as revealing!

I don’t disagree with anything you say. You ALWAYS miss the point. Demonstrate leadership and people will follow. Organize a march and I’ll walk with you. I mean it. Otherwise your energy is misplaced. Ranting and raving on the site will achieve NOTHING.

two years ago, i too was blissfully ignorant of how VAST the full spectrum dominance of international banking cabals “actually” was and if i see the sword coming and do not blow the trumpet,the people then are not warned?

All cheer-leading of evil usury must simply end …look where that has got us!Fascist policies of bail-ins,bail-outs, cruel slashing of budgets et cetera , ALL measures dedicated wholly to feed our masters

I don’t disagree with anything you say. You ALWAYS miss the point. Demonstrate leadership and people will follow. Organize a march and I’ll walk with you. I mean it. Otherwise your energy is misplaced. Ranting and raving on the site will achieve NOTHING.

you now recognise the Real dangers we all face, you know the proposed set of solutions, but need me to tell you to get out of the way from of the out of control debt locomotive about to mow you and your family down ?

if there isnt a monumental shift in awareness and a shift of consciousness to the impending dooom, humanity is gonna be thrown overboard by the hopelessly bankrupt pirate bansters and our discarded corpses ,with more than the cruelty of our ears cut off, will be the same as found at the base of Baltard Cliffs in Doonbeg recently!

The behemoth ,shape-shifting banking cartels and warmongering Obama is threatening humanity’s future and we will be unceremoniously flushed down the toilet by these “flash boy” financiers, in a devestating derivative whirpool ,unless we reinstate Glass Steagall

ex nihilo ,nihil fit….we must be creative now and intervene with GS and use Science as our compass !! So let”s forget the Forest Gump organic economics of abiogenesis and empire’s cancer of de-industrialisation!

The history of the world is the history of empire and this neo-Nazi empire is crumbling,as is now observable fact!

and its not just about cutting down trees, per se, but rather sowing seeds, for our Future ,with a re-focus of hi-tech and increasing the productive powers of labour, which will influence todays world and shape tomorrows.

I was very happy to see Martin McGuiness at Windsor Castle ! Yes, certainly “Geo-political chess moves hidden under pomp and ceremony”, but “life’s a game of inches”